When born-to-rule Tories – with a bloated sense of self-worth and entitlement – slip up and let us peasants know how they really view us – it is usually unsurprising to most on the Left.

Take, for example, Bill English’s candid admission that New Zealand’s lower wage rates were beneficial when it came to competing with Australia. On 10 April 2011, in an exchange with Guyon Espiner on TVNZ’s Q+A, English boasted of the benefits of low wages;

GUYON Can I talk about the real economy for people? They see the cost of living keep going up. They see wages really not- if not quite keeping pace with that, certainly not outstripping it much. I mean, you said at the weekend to the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum that one of our advantages over Australia was that our wages were 30% cheaper. I mean, is that an advantage now?

BILL Well, it’s a way of competing, isn’t it? I mean, if we want to grow this economy, we need the capital – more capital per worker – and we’re competing for people as well.

GUYON So it’s part of our strategy to have wages 30% below Australia?

BILL Well, they are, and we need to get on with competing for Australia. So if you take an area like tourism, we are competing with Australia. We’re trying to get Australians here instead of spending their tourist dollar in Australia.

GUYON But is it a good thing?

BILL Well, it is a good thing if we can attract the capital, and the fact is Australians- Australian companies should be looking at bringing activities to New Zealand because we are so much more competitive than most of the Australian economy.

GUYON So let’s get this straight – it’s a good thing for New Zealand that our wages are 30% below Australia?

BILL No, it’s not a good thing, but it is a fact. We want to close that gap up, and one way to close that gap up is to compete, just like our sports teams are doing. This weekend we’ve had rugby league, netball, basketball teams, and rugby teams out there competing with Australia. That’s lifting the standard. They’re closing up the gap.

GUYON But you said it was an advantage, Minister.

BILL Well, at the moment, if I go to Australia and talk to Australians, I want to put to them a positive case for investment in New Zealand, because while we are saving more, we’re not saving more fast enough to get the capital that we need to close the gap with Australia. So Australia already has 40 billion of investment in New Zealand. If we could attract more Australian companies, activities here, that would help us create the jobs and lift incomes.

Perhaps realising he had dug a hole for himself, English added at the end; “… and lift incomes“. Though of course, if “incomes lifted”, New Zealand workers would no longer be competitive with their Australian cuzzies, according to his Bizarro-world “logic”.

In 2016, at a Federated Farmers meeting in Feilding, English probably felt “at home” and sufficiently comfortable in his surroundings to let his guard down. English attacked workers again, trashing them as “hopeless“;

“A lot of the Kiwis that are meant to be available [for farm work] are pretty damned hopeless. They won’t show up. You can’t rely on them and that is one of the reasons why immigration’s a bit permissive, to fill that gap… a cohort of Kiwis who now can’t get a license because they can’t read and write properly and don’t look to be employable, you know, basically young males.”

A year later, English took a further swipe at New Zealand workers, effectively labelling them en-masse as “druggies. On 27 February 2017, he told the Parliamentary press;

“One of the hurdles these days is just passing a drug test. Under workplace safety you can’t have people on your premises under the influence of drugs and a lot of our younger people can’t pass that test.”

English’s startling (and offensive) generalisation came as a response to questions why National was allowing a flood of immigrant workers when 140,000 local workers remained unemployed.

Blaming others is de rigueur for National when facing one of their countless failures;

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Some more blame-gaming;

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And yet more…

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Not satisfied with those digs at workers and the unemployed, English made it clear only four days before Christmas precisely what he thought of young people bettering themselves through higher education. Responding to Labour’s enactment of their election promise for one year’s free tertiary education – English lamented that “Government’s fees-free policy will ‘soak up staff out of McDonald’s’...”;

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That’s right, folks. Bill English’s ambition for young New Zealanders is to get a job at McDonalds; work hard; and – stay there. No higher education for you mini-peasants!

McDonalds New Zealand realised immediatley the implications of English’s derisory comment and quickly fired out a statement countering the former-Prime Minister;

“We don’t expect to see much impact as a result of the Government’s free fees policy.”

When a major business contradicts National – the political party ostensibly representing the interests of business – you know Bill English has screwed up. Essentially his brain was in ‘neutral’ when his mouth opened and words tumbled out.

It should come as absolutely no surprise that English is so harsh in his criticism. Labour’s one year free tertiary education is only the beginning. It heralds a gradual return to what New Zealanders once enjoyed: near-free tertiary education.

It is another cog removed from the creaking neo-liberal system as it is dismantled, piece-by-rotten-piece.

[Bill] English went on to study commerce at the University of Otago, where he was a resident at Selwyn College, and then completed an honours degree in English literature at Victoria University of Wellington.

After finishing his studies, English returned to Dipton and farmed for a few years. From 1987 to 1989, he worked in Wellington as a policy analyst for the New Zealand Treasury…

Bill English undertook his tertiary education prior to 1987. Student fees/loans did not start until 1992.

That means Bill English graduated with his Commerce and English Lit degrees without having to pay fees or take out massive loans. His tertiary education was (near-)free.

A year and a half ago, Paula Bennett showed little hesitation in milking the opening of community housing for a photo-op*;

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Bennett was not shy in using tenants with disabilities as part of her “feel good” propaganda piece.

The Present…

Bennett appears to have lost her willingness to front up to the media and be photographed with the homeless who have been given shelter by the Te Puea Marae;

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According to John Campbell, Bennett refused to appear on Radio NZ’s Checkpoint for an interview.

Poverty in New Zealand has been put under the glare of the media spotlight (at least, by Radio NZ) and National ministers have gone-to-ground. Their inaction on poverty has created a crisis in our society that is no longer possible to ignore.

When ministers of an incumbent government are no longer willing to defend their policies and track-record, and refuse to be held to account by the media, then it is a clear sign they are in deep trouble.

No doubt Bennett’s taxpayer-funded spin-doctors have advised her to keep her head down; refuse all requests for interviews; and hope desperately that this latest crisis for National will blow over.

Unfortunately for Bennett and her parasitic, dogma-driven Tory cronies, they do not realise the tenacity and sense of fair-mindedness from one of New Zealand’s best investigative journalists: John Campbell.

This is what an inept, self-serving politician looks like when the bullshit is stripped away; their spin-doctors have no answers; and they stand revealed in the glare of public attention.

This is what speaking truth to power looks like.

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* Note: The identity of the tenant has been redacted to protect his privacy, and the title of the article removed for similar reasons. Readers are asked not to post information or links which identify the tenants. – FM

Though why the media still seeks comment from the so-called “Taxpayers Union” escapes me, as they are a well-known front-group for the National Party, and are run almost exclusively by National and ACT party apparatchiks.

Immediatly after the release of Labour’s new tertiary education policy, which promised three years of free education, National’s Minister for Tertiary Education, Steven Joyce tweeted,

“Labour Party wants to take more than a billion dollars a year off taxpayers to achieve absolutely nothing #desperate”

Which is an irony, considering that Steven Joyce received a free university education, courtesy of the New Zealand taxpayer, before user-pays was implemented in 1992.

Even more ironic is that whilst National is unleashing the Police to arrest graduates who have not re-paid their student loans, neither Steven Joyce nor John Key have ever repaid their free University educations.

The only ones desperate are Joyce, Key, and other National ministers, who have rorted the system; gained personal benefit; and now displaying a level of hypocrisy that can only be described as breath-taking.

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-Frank Macskasy

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Soon after Labour leader Andrew Little released their “new” policy advocating free tertiary education for the first three years, National’s own Tertiary Education Minister was quick to respond on Twitter;

“Labour more desperate than we all thought.Stealing massively expensive InternetMana policy on “free tertiary education from last election”

Which is astounding, for two reasons;

1. New Zealand once had free tertiary education and was readily affordable until seven tax cuts since 1986 gutted taxation-revenue, making social services less affordable and increasingly more user-pays.

2. Both John Key and Steven Joyce benefitted from a free tertiary educatyion. Yes, folks, Both Key and Joyce had their University tuition paid by the taxpayer. Neither men have ever repaid a single cent of their education.

Now Joyce is issuing comments on social media condemning the concept of free education? The same free education he personally benefitted from?!

When it comes to naked hypocrisy, experience shows that National (and other rightwing) politicians excel.

Take Judith Collins’s comment in the Dominion Post on 9 August,

As Minister of Justice, I take seriously any suggestions that something went wrong in the criminal justice system. I am satisfied that there are appropriate options available to address any concerns about Pora’s case.

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In the meantime, it would be constitutionally unsound for me, as a minister of the Crown, to intervene in the court process.

Say whut?!?!

Is this the same woman who, in December last year (2012) publically trashed the report from retired Canadian Judge, Ian Binnie?

Judge Binnie, who had been invited – by the National-led government – to assessing possible compensation for wrongly convicted, David Bain.

She dismissed Judge Binnie’s report as;

“Put simply, it would not be acceptable to make a recommendation to Cabinet based on a report that would not withstand the considerable scrutiny it would attract.

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“Let me be very clear that I do not expect unsolicited reports which I have received two of in the last two months to be compensated for.”

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I am very concerned that there has been this delay. It would not have been possible for me to have put forward a recommendation based on a report that I believe would not stand up to public scrutiny.”

And there was more. Collins’ unprofessional behaviour and outrageous public statements were not only an insult to a respected member of the Canadian judiciary – but in effect she made New Zealand a laughing stock of the international judicial community. It will be a brave member of a foreign judiciary who takes up any future government invitation to impartially assess an issue in our country.

So for Collins to say with a straight face that it would be “constitutionally unsound for me, as a minister of the Crown, to intervene in the court process” – or other aspect of our judicial system for that matter – is breath-taking hypocrisy.

But then, such sanctimonious rubbish has been the hallmark of this unstable, unprincipled, and unpredictable government.

Judith Collins is not fit to clean public toilets much less hold the position of Minister of Justice. The term “justice” is an alien concept to her.

Meanwhile, a man most likely innocent, rots in jail.

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Collins – Unfit to be a Minister!

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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 10 August 2013.

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I guess that justifies Dear Leader John Key turning his back on society’s most vulnerable. After all, “poor choices” justifies blaming the poor for being poor, instead of having $50 million in their bank account.

So Mr Key, how did that free tertiary education and subsidised state house work out for you?